Giants flail, fail in series at Colorado / Swept, with Arizona next

Published 4:00 am, Monday, May 27, 2002

2002-05-27 04:00:00 PDT Denver -- Ever since Coors Field rose above the once-seedy LoDo district of downtown Denver, the Colorado Rockies have gotten on some great rolls playing their unique brand of mile-high baseball. To stop them, the visitors at a minimum have to play nine innings of solid fundamental baseball.

The Giants failed to do that over the weekend. To the contrary, they played their most wretched ball of the season and paid a dear price. The Rockies swept them, closing the deal by coming from behind to win 10-6 Sunday.

Who hit the two-run single in the fifth that put the Rockies ahead for good at 7-6? If you didn't answer Bobby Estalella, you haven't been paying attention. The former Giants catcher had six RBIs and scored four runs in just two games over the weekend, helping Colorado finish a 10-3 homestand.

The Giants, having lost four of five on their trip and seven of the past 10 overall, take the wrong kind of momentum into a four-game series against division-leading Arizona that starts this afternoon at Pacific Bell Park. Twenty minutes after finishing a mistake-filled game, manager Dusty Baker was not ready to ponder the Diamondbacks.

"We just got our butts kicked," he said. "I'll think about that series on the way home. I don't like the feeling we have now."

Few in the Giants' clubhouse liked a schedule that had them flying home Sunday night and playing at 1 p.m. today.

"Our schedule has been horrible all year," first baseman J.T. Snow said. "Whoever did our schedule must have been out late one night and made the schedule the next day. It's been brutal. But that's what they gave us, and that's what we have to work with."

The Giants were working with a 6-3 lead after 2 1/2 innings Sunday after Colorado contributed a wild pitch, a passed ball, a throwing error and a high fly to right by Snow that Larry Walker lost in the sun and second baseman Jose Ortiz couldn't catch. It was ruled a two-run double.

However, the Giants won the dubious game of givebacks. The roll of shame is long.

base. Yorvit Torrealba dropped a throw home that should have prevented Colorado's first run. Jeff Kent and Snow struck out with Ramon Martinez at third base after he got there with one out in the fifth. Finally, Torrealba allowed Colorado's 10th run on an eighth-inning throwing error, then grounded into a double play in the ninth.

Once the Rockies stopped giving away runs, the Giants stopped scoring, enabling Colorado to roar back against Ryan Jensen, who allowed three runs in the game before he got an out.

Jensen gave up eight runs in five innings, and after 10 games his pattern is clear. He is 2-1 with a 0.96 ERA at Pacific Bell Park, 2-3 with a 7.33 ERA at the road.

"I feel comfortable wherever I pitch," he said. "I was just horrible today. The team gives me six runs and I can't do anything with it."

Todd Helton's 13th homer started a two-out rally in the third to close it to 6-5. Walker and Helton singled to start the decisive rally in the fifth. With one out, Jensen walked Todd Hollandsworth to load the bases for Estalella.

Jensen got ahead 0-2 and then threw what he called "a great pitch," a sinker at Estalella's hands. Estalella fisted it into short center, allowing the tying and go-ahead runs to score. Ortiz added a sacrifice fly to make it 8- 6. The Rockies then scored twice off Jay Witasick in the eighth to complete their 33rd victory in 50 games against the Giants in LoDo (Lower Downtown, if you must know).

At least now the Giants can look forward to a week of their kind of baseball at Pacific Bell Park, hoping they left their bad baseball at Coors.

"Everything's a little different in this ballpark," Snow said. "It's not like playing in our ballpark. They handed it to us the last few days. I'm not making excuses, but it's a different game here. I don't think there will be any carryover."